Making a Warm Winter Bed.in an Unheated Bedroom.

Just get a memory foam mattress. You WILL wake up hot

a hot water bottle and ive been thinking of adding a layer or 3 of cardboard or a blanket under the mattress

Horrible energetically.


[link to vermontsoapstone.com (secure)]

Grab any soapstone you can find (these are cheap and I used an AMerican site). The directions are easy.

From age 1 to 18 lived in and old house with no furnace. Common areas were heated with gas stove and a space heater but bedrooms had no insulation, no heat, and old single pane windows. Froze our asses off until my Polish great grandmother made us kids some goose down pierzynas. These would keep you so warm it was ridiculous.

Mr annoying but warm.

https://imgur.com/a/MHTbpIo

https://imgur.com/a/OWz1ROF

Minimus a bit more fluffy.

The red bag ( survival bag )

Either sleep in jacket and synth pants.

Or just the summer quilt inside.

A couple of winter systems are a bonus, from the jacket booster.

Quilts maybe make bags irrelevent but the Minimus K series ( 380g ) Is probably the ultimate 3 season hiking bag. Mine is 500g but thqts also with a tougher dri-shell. Still a worthy hiking bag.

I bet they would charge hundreds ( if at all ) to add a zip to red sleeping bag.

Might be a joke. Money wise. I couldnt afford to buy.

But theres some gear for sale ( 25% off ) plus another 15% on 6 dec.

Some weird colours but it would blow other brands away for getting warm.

[link to www.phdesigns.co.uk (secure)]

We must be twins, I was going to post almost this exactly. My Max runs my electric blanket all night, and can charge during the day.

Too bloody right!

We just added our rectangular Wiggy's 0° bag on top of the normal bedding for this winter. Very comfy

This is the one we are currently using. We have 3 other lighter ones for summer use.

[link to www.wiggys.com (secure)]

I'd like to expand on this for the sake of the topic and anyone interested.

I use the max plugged in as a uninterruptible power supply indoors. With the electric blanket, fleece blanket layer, then thick comforter layer on memory foam mattress and pillow.

I have the same setup in my CR-V for shtf situation. So far I have done -15f with zero problems and perfect comfort. Hope this helps.

Thread: My winter warming tips for the novice & expert alike

I'd like to add



we can keep ourselves warm and ...

Great post Judez - some great tips here that I'll use in other ways in other rooms.

My bedroom is east facing. It's always cold.
With no heating in the house now, it's more or less a constant 14C (57F).

Here's my sleep arrangements now - not much added/changed but the small differences really add up.


1. A quality hybrid mattress. Mine is a totally superb OTTY, had it for 3 years now. Incredibly comfy and a great sleep.

A hybrid has several layers - pocket springs topped by foam and memory foam and a heat regulating cover. Never been too hot but always just right.
Added a thin quilted mattress topper.

The dense foam layers underneath and at the sides act as insulation also.



2.Brilliant Beurer heating cushion, variable heat settings, switched off after an hour or so automatically (can't remember). Use wherever you're cold, feet, head, back stomach etc.
Beurer is a very green, eco friendly German company. They cite energy use: 0.024kWh - approx EU 0.0144/60mins.
(In real money just over a penny an hour, £4-5 a year? with rising costs).
An hour of this is all I need. Well worth the outlay.


3. Asda cold winter 18tog duvet - great quality and cheap
add a couple of light fleece blankets. (layers are better than one heavy blanket. Layers make the difference in cold weather, they trap warm air like a sammich!.)

Incredibly snug. When it gets colder, I'm planning to use another 10 or 13tog duvet on top.


4. Forget pyjamas. Use comfy cotton blend joggers, the ones with a fluffy lining. 2 or 3 longsleeve loose-fitting cotton t shirts.
Fluffy bedsocks. (Haven't needed a sleeping cap yet, I've got lots of hair, but I've pulled out fleecy outdoor pull-ons just in case.)

With this lot I can make a dash to the loo and back again without losing much heat.

5. My bedroom window is covered by a blind and thermal curtains which I've tightly tucked into the recess as a draught/cold stopper (not recommended unless you have another source of ventilation).


Night temps outside have been running at 2c-4c. I've been waking up very toasty.
I decided against homemade live flame heating like flower pot radiators etc. I'd loose sleep worrying about fire hazard (was burnt in a bedroomfire as a kid, not risking that again.)

Your house and floors and pipes need to be heated. You won't like the repairs of broken plumbing.

People need to get setting up proper and full house heat.

If people are going to be away for long periods during the colder months, the plumbing can be easily winterized; plumbers do it all the time, and so can the average person with a brian. You shut off the water, blow out the pipes with compressed air, then put windshield washer fluid into the sink traps and the toilet bowl. Done.

great thread Judith.

I ordered a sleeping bag from amazon after reading the thread. Tired of dealing with a cold bedroom..

Yikes! I've just realized that if the power is off for a few weeks/months with freezes and thaws then everyone runs the risk of horrific water damage. I'm by no means an expert but I would suppose 1...Turn off the stopcock. 2...Leave one or two taps on. 3...Stock up on drinking and washing up water,

Great thread judeth.

my short tip list for unheated homes.

1. always wear insulated shoes and cap, lots of heat will leave your feet and head. (also gloves)

2. put morning clothes on top of sheet/under insulation in bed, so they are relatively warm and more pleasant to put on.

3. learn to make a rocket stove and close off/insulate a small room. even if you are surrounded by wood, its very hard to gather enough to heat an entire home, and will be risky in SHTF situation, so being efficient with wood is essential. if you are planning on using any other heat source, I hope youve got ALOT of it stored up in a clandestine way.

insulating yourself/body is #1, look into high r value stuff if you really want the best, but basics like wool will go a long way.

sleep with someone in the same sleeping bag to share body heat. 98 degrees is a lot of heat.

Put on some muscle and be nice to your mitochondria.

My bedroom is farthest from the wood stove in the winter in an old wooden farmhouse with minimal insulation. I do have both a down comforter and a feather bed. On the very coldest nights, I prefer to preheat my bed with something like the soapstone mentioned earlier, and a friend taught me that sleeping with my down comforter wrapped up like a hood over my head and then around my body keep me warmer and they were totally right. Since I started doing this, nights are always warm and cozy.
We have fairly cold winters. In February, the average temperature is 10° f.

The bathroom and kitchen are both much closer to the wood stove, so the pipes have not frozen yet.

Dogs or small children are great heaters if you are in need of something to keep you warm. Cats are too small, plus they like to lay on top of you and it seems more like they just steal your heat

Good point. My front door is nearly all glass, so could use one there.

Put some cold silver coins on the sheets. That oughta keep you warm....

I remember my grandparents going to bed with hot water bottles. They were leak proof rubber bladders.

A few winters ago our power was out for 2 weeks, I set up our cabin tent up in the LR in front of the fireplace and used my BBQ grill for all cooking needs outside, with the chiminea raging next to me of course.

Taking cold showers wasn't that bad as it was colder outside than the cold water was.

Ok, but sleeping bags are not very comfortable. I'd probably unzip it and use it like a blanket, and sleep on top of a fleece blanket.

I lived with no central heat for 5 winters here in TN. That's not the same as no heat though, I had a space heater, oven, dryer. It wasn't without consequence, I had a cough ongoing for years.

Your dryer makes a good emergency heater as long as you have electric. Take the exhaust out from the wall, and place a nylon sock over the exhaust and dry clothes. That can warm an entire small home, but you will have some lint in the air.

Just don't suffocate yourself. Make sure you've got some snake plants in your bedroom, because they produce oxygen at night while you're sleeping. [link to jayscotts.com (secure)] This makes snake plants unusual. Most plants produce oxygen during the day, and carbon dioxide at night.

I love my goose down comforter. Was cold before I got that. I love being warm now. Use it year round.

Don't use electric anything: pads, beds & blankets all cause cancer.

For extreme cold, layers matter. Wool clothes and goose down and wool blankets. Heavy duty wool socks are mandatory. The great thing about wool is that it retains heat even when wet. If possible, heat rocks are a good thing to use too if fire or a stove is available.